Machine for making carpets and other tufted or piled products



Fb. 9, 1937. BRmTON 2,069,912

MACHINE FOR MAKlNG CARPETS AND OTHER TUFTED OR FILED PRODUCTS Filed Oct. 17, 1955 4 Sheets-Sheet l 8 IIWF/VTOR: MMM

Feb. 9, 1937. c. c. BRINTON MACHINE FOR MAKING CARPETS AND OTHER TUFTED OR FILED PRODUCTS Filed Oct. 17, 1955 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 I/WEIV my: M 3y JTIW FIVEVS Feb. 9, 1937. c. c. BRINTON 2,069,912

MACHINE FOR MAKING CARPETS AND OTHER TUFTED OR FILED PRODUCTS Filed Oct. 17, 1935 4 Sheets-Sheet 3 Arm/swa s.

Feb. 9, 1937. c, C BRINTON 2,069,912

MACHINE FOR MAKING CARPETS AND OTHER TUFTED OR FILED PRODUCTs Filed Oct. 17, 1935 4 Sheets-Sheet 4 9 x m m/rom g 4 Patented Feb. 9, 1937 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Cecil Charles Brinton,

Kidderminster, England Application October 17, 1935, Serial No. 45,518

In Great Britain 9 Claims.

This invention has reference to looms or machinery for making carpets and similar tufted fabrics, and relates in particular to machines wherein a retractable tuft-yarn carriage is used to present the yarns to a system of grippers that seize and hold the ends of the said yarns during the retraction of the carriage and the cutting-off of the tuft-lengths and then transfer the said tuft-lengths to another part of the machine for embodiment in the foundation or backing of a fabric.

According to the said invention, it is proposed to embody in a machine of the type referred to, an intermittently-rotatable tuft-transferring unit which is arranged in front of the retractable yarncarriage and comprises twoseries of tuft-grippers which are disposed along opposite sides of the axis of rotation of the unit and are each constituted by an oscillating jaw and a fixed jaw; the said rotatable unit and its oscillatory gripper- J'aws being so controlled that the unit is brought to rest after each rotational movement through an angle of 180 and the grippers thus located in the tuft-pick-up position are closed while the grippers located in the tuft-delivery position are opened. In the preferred construction, the oscillatory gripper-jaws on each side of the tufttransferring unit are collectively controlled by a shaft which is journaled in the said unit and is connected to a spring-controlled and cam-operated lever located outwards of one end of the unit. The gripper controls also ensure that an appropriate pause or dwell occurs after each angular throw-over to enable the performance of the tuftextracting, cutting-off, and other essential operations, during a period over which the gripper assembly is held stationary.

The invention is hereinafter described in its application, by way of example, to machines for producing carpets or tufted fabrics by a sequence or cycle of operations that involves the seizing and extraction of tuft-lengths or yarn from the retracting yarn carriage, the cutting off of the extracted lengths from the yarn ends, the transfer of the cut-off lengths to the planting position, the release of the transfer tufts, and the return of the tuft-transfer devices to the tuft-extracting position.

One construction of machine according to the invention is hereinafter described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a plan of the tuft-extracting and transferring mechanism.

Figure 2 is a sectional elevation, showing one gripper-unit of the mechanism in the position in September 26, 1934 which it is held after completion of its tuft-transferring movement.

Figure 3 is another elevation, showing the gripper unit in an intermediate position in which the jaws at one end are gripping an extracted tuft length and. the jaws at the other end are empty.

Figure 4 is a further elevation of a gripper unit, showing the jaws at one end holding a tuft-length and locating the same on the planting side of the machine, and the jaws at the other end about to close for gripping the yarn.

In the machine shown. in the drawings, a rotatable yarn-carriage b, which is provided with a tuft-cutting mechanism 26, 28, is arranged at the back of the machine, a rotatable tuft-transferring unit a and its control gear are arranged between the combined tuft-cutting and yarn-carriage b and the tuft-planting means (I are arranged at the front of the machine.

The yarn-carriage and the tuft-cutting mechanism are constructed as an assembly which is adapted to be reciprocated bodily in the machine for enabling the extracting of yarn-lengths i, during a backward or retraction stroke of the said assembly, after the ends of the yarn have been seized by one or the other of the two sets of grippers a a located on diametrically opposite sides of the axis of rotation a of the tuft-transferring unit, the said grippers (and the seized yarns) being held stationary during the said retraction of the carrier and also during the cutting-off of the tuft-lengths. The yarn-carriage and cutting assembly b is so operated and controlled that after having performed its yarn-extraction stroke, and after the extracted lengths have been cut off, the said assembly makes a return or forward stroke at the proper moment in the cycle of operations and presents the yarn ends to one or the other of the grippers after it has completed its tuft-transferring movement.

' The tuft-transferring unit a is made up of a series of jaw-plates a which are fixed side by side, and at exactly equidistant pitch in alignment with the yarns 2'. upon a common driving shaft (1 which is journalled transversely of the side frames I of the machine and is adapted to be thrown over in the successive steps bysuitably arranged gearing with a pause or'dwell between each step. Each plate a is formed, at its opposite ends, with a yarn gripper comprising a fixed jaw a which has hinged to it, a complementary oscillatory jaw-piece a the oscillatory jaw-pieces a at each end of the series of plates a are fixed to a common shaft a which is journalled in, and arranged transversely to the-fixed 55 jaw-plates a so that each set of oscillatory jawpieces may be opened and closed in unison with respect to their fixed jaws when the complemen- V tary shaft a is rotated within the jaw-plates. Each shaft a has a lever or tappet c fixed to one end, the said levers being arranged on opposite ends of the respective jaw-shafts, outwardly of the tuft-transferring .unit a. Each lever is loaded by a spring 3 so that its free end is 'held in contact with a complementary. cam 4 rotatably mounted on a side frame I, the said cam being adapted to operate the said levers and shafts for.

opening and closing the oscillatory jaws of the tuft-transferring unit at the appropriate moment in each cycle of the machine. Each cam 4 is controlled by a link 5, and arm 6 carried upon the spindle I of guide roller 8 disposed transversely of the side frames I, the arm Ii being provided with a roller 29 which makes contact with a cam 9 fixed upon a spindle I which is mounted transversely of the sideframe I, and is conlatory jaws are opened by a downward hinging movement from the fixed jaws (see Fig. 4) while the other set of oscillatory laws which will be in the delivery position, or presented to the tuftreceiving or planting side of the machine, is opened by an upward. hinging movement (see Fig. 3). The jaw plates a are disposed in planes perpendicular to their driving shaft and are pitched to correspond to the pile-pitch of the fabric which the machine is designed to produce.

- In the application of the invention shown in the drawings, the tufts are adapted to be located and planted by a device I6 but it is to be understood that this device forms no part of the present invention. This locating and planting device I6 is arranged across the front of the machine in parallelism with the driving shaft aof the tufttransferring unit and above a system of rollers or beams (two of which are shown at 8 and II, Fig. 2) thatguide and support a backing material I3, adapted to receive tufts, in its run from a let-off to a take-up roller.

The locating device consists of a plate or bar I2 which isso fixed across the side frames I that it lies in close relation to the upper face of the backing I3 and above a support I4; this plate I2 is formed with a row of holes or apertures pitched to' correspond to the pitch of the jaw-plates a and to the pitch of a system of perforations or reticulations which may have been formed previously in the said backing. The plate I2 is also formed on its upper face with a system of transverse grooves I5 each of which intersects one of the holes or apertures and is of a width and depth suitable-for receiving a tuft length and locating the same across the corresponding hole I4. The grooves I5 are preferably given a flared or V-like section to facilitate the placing of the transferred tuft-lengths therein by the tuft-transferring unit a as the latter completes a 180 throw-over. The support I4 is provided with a row of holes or apertures which register with the holes in the plate I2.

The planting device comprises a battery of needles d which is arranged above the plate I2, the needles being so pitched and housed in a common carrier d which is slidably mounted in a fixed head I! carried by the side frames I, that they register with the holes or apertures in the plate I2 and are adapted to pass through the said holes I4 in the support I4 during the downward or planting stroke of the said carrier to insert the transferred tufts into the backing I3. The carrier d is reciprocated within the head I! by a link e carried by the shaft or spindle I8 which is disposed transversely of the side frames I, an arm e being provided with a roller I 9 which is disposed in the path of a continuously rotated cam e fixed upon a transverse shaft 20.

The yarn-carriageand cutter assembly b is arranged across the back of the machine and is rests upon the stationary cam incorporated in the frame I. A cutter comb 26 is also fixed to the arm 23, the teeth of the said comb being at I exactly equidistant pitch to correspond to the pitch of the yarns i so that when the comb is lowered it will saddle'over the said yarns to permit of the tuft lengths 21 being severed by a sliding movement of the knife 28 across the said comb. Yarn-compartments 2 in which the yarns are carried are provided with springs 30 which grip the yarn ends and feed the yarn to the gripoers when the yarn-carriage makes its forward stroke.

In Figure 2 the right-hand jaws a a of the tuft-transferring unit have gripped the ends of the yarns 1' 'due to the cam 9 (shown in dotted lines in Fig. 3), which is rotating anti-clockwise, having raised the complementary roller I9, lever 6, link 5, to impart a clockwise movement to the complementary cam'4 so that the lever c fbearing on said cam 4 has been raised to the greaterradiusportion of the latter and has been turned anti-clockwise to close the oscillatory jawsl "The lever c complementary to the left-hand grippers a a is also in contact with the greater-radius portion of its cam 4, but is near the end of this portion, and its complementaryarm 6 is at the bottom of its stroke. The cam h is out of contact with the bell-crank 71 so that the yarn-carriage and cutter assembly b is at the extreme retracted position away from the tuft-transferring unit and the cutter-comb 26 is saddled across the yarns i. The cam c has depressed the roller I9, arm e and slide 41 to cause the needles to inser a row of tufts 2! into the backing I3.

' The sequence of operations is as follows:--The knife 28 cuts off a row of tuft-lengths from the yarns i and .at the same time the cam 9 pertaining to the left-hand grippers a a (shown in full lines in Fig. 3) raises its roller 29, arm 6, and link 5 to impart an anti-clockwise movement to the cam 4 controlling the left-hand oscillatory jaws a with the result that the complementary lever c is lowered on the smallerradius portion of its cam 4 and opens the said jaws so that the last-planted row of tufts is released The shaft a which has been at rest, is

then rotated through the position shown in Fig. 3 to the position shown in Fig. 4 and the cam 6 simultaneously moves from the roller l9 so that the needles d are raised; during this rotary movement of the tuft-transferring unit the dotted line cam 9 (Fig. 3) lowers its lever B to impart an anti-clockwise movement to the complementary lever-cam l, that is a movement in the same direction as that in which the lever is travelling, but this has no effect on the lever because the timing is such that this event does not occur until the lever has ridden through a distance along the greater-radius portion of the cam 4 which is equal to or greater than the movement of the said cam; the only effect of the cam movement is to increase the time during which the lever controlling the right-hand oscillatory jaw a (Fig. 2) remains in contact with the greater-radius portion of the cam so as to insure that the jaws 20 remain closed until the gripper assembly reaches its Fig. 4 position; also during the angular movementof the tuft-transferring unit the full line cam 9 (Fig. 3) permits its lever 6 to fall so that an anti-clockwise movement is also imparted to the cam 4 operating the left-hand oscillatory jaws e (Fig. 2) the result of this operation is to insure that the complementary lever remains in contact with the smaller-radius portion of the cam, and the said jaws remain open until the gripper assembly reaches its Fig. 4 position. As the machine reaches its Fig. 4 position, the cam h impinges on, and angularly displaces, the bell-crank lever h to slide the yarn-carriage and cutter-assembly b towards the tuft-transferring unit a, to raise the cutter-comb 26, 28, and present the ends of the yarns 2' into the open grippers a a, which, in Fig. 2, were situated on the left-hand side of the tuft-transferring unit. The cam 9 (shown in full lines in Fig. 3) then raises its lever B to impart a clockwise movement to the cam 4 controlling the said oscillatory jaws a so that the complementary lever 0 which has now reached the end of the short radius portion of the said cam, is suddenly moved on to the greater radius portion and closes the grippers a a which were in the left-hand of the unit a in Fig. 2. The yarn ends are now gripped, thus as the cam It moves away from the roller l9 to permit the combined yarn-carriage and cutter-assembly to withdraw from the tufttransferring unit, the yarns are pulled through their compartments 2; also the roller at 24 rides down the cam 25 to lower the comb-arm so that the latter saddles over the yarns. operation the cam e impinges on and depresses the lever e so that the needles are lowered on to the tufts 2'! which, as the tuft-transferring unit reaches the end of its 180 movement, are placed into the transverse grooves l in the plate [2 and over the holes in the said plate. The machine has now returned to its Fig. 2 position (except that the jaws shown on the left-hand side of this figure have moved to the right-hand side and the shaft I0 has made half a revolution). The sequence of operations during the second 180 movement is similar to the above and comnletes the cycle of the machine.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:-

1. In a machine for making tufted fabrics and the like, a retractable yarn-carriage which in its advanced position delivers yarn to two yarngrippers alternately, means operating when said yarn-carriage is in its retracted position for cutting tufts from the yarn thus delivered to one During this or other of the yarn-grippers, a tuft-transferring unit, which includes said yarn grippers, associated with said yarn-carriage, said tuft-transferring and gripper unit being adapted to receive yarn tufts from said yarn-carriage, means for receiving yarn tufts from said unit and incorporating them into a tufted fabric or the like, means for operating said unit tobring the unit to rest so that one gripper is in the tuft-receiving position with respect to the said yarn-carriage and the other gripper is simultaneously in the tuft-delivery position with respect to said tuftreceiving means, and means for closing the grippers when in said tuft-receiving position and opening the said grippers when in said tuft-delivering position, the means for opening and closing one jaw being independent of the means of opening and closing the other jaw.

2. In a machine for making tufted fabrics and the like, a retractable yarn-carriage which in its advanced position delivers yarn to two yarngrippers alternately, means operating when said yarn-carriage is in its retracted position for cutting tufts from the yarn thus delivered to one or other of the yarn-grippers, an intermittentlyrotatable tuft-transferring unit arranged in front of said retractable yarn-carriage and including yarn-grippers disposed at substantially diametrically opposite sides of the axis of rotation of the unit, said grippers adapted to receive yarn tufts from said yarn-carriage alternately, means in front of said tuft-transferring and gripper unit and in substantial alinement with said yarncarriage for receiving the yarn tufts from said unit and incorporating them into a tufted fabric or the like, means for operating said unit to bring the unit to rest after each rotational movement of said unit through an angle of substantially 180 to bring the gripper on one side of the axis of rotation of said unit into tuft-receiving position with respect to said yarn-carriage and the other gripper simultaneously into tuft-delivery position with respect to said tuft-receiving means, and means for closing the grippers when in said tuft-receiving positions and opening the grippers when in said tuft-delivering positions, the means for opening and closing one jaw being independent of the means for opening and closing the other jaw.

3. A machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein each of the yarn-grippers comprise an oscillatory jaw and a fixed jaw, and wherein the means for opening and closing the gripper operates the oscillatory jaw.

4. A machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the machine includes two shafts journaled in the tuft-transferring gripper unit for operating the yarn-grippers, and two spring-loaded and cam-operated levers located outwardly of the said unit, one lever being connected to one of said shafts and the other being connected to the other shaft.

5. A machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the machine includes a main operating shaft, a plurality of tuft-transferring and gripper units mounted in spaced parallel relationship on said main operating shaft, each of the grippers of each unit having a fixed jaw and an oscillatory jaw, and two operating shafts, one operating shaft being connected to one of the oscillatory jaws of all the units for effecting simultaneous operation and the other operating shaft being connected to the second oscillatory jaw of all the units for effecting simultaneous operation.

6. A machine as claimed in claim 2, wherein the yarn-grippers disposed at substantially diametrically opposite sides of the axis of rotation of the tuft-transferring and gripper unit each comprise an oscillatory jaw and a fixed jaw and wherein the means for opening and closing each gripper operates on the oscillatory jaw.

'7. A machine as claimed in claim 2 wherein of rotation of said units and the other of the said'shafts being connected to the grippers on the other side of said axis of rotation, and a pair of spring-loaded and cam-operated levers located outwardly of said units, one of said levers being connected to an end of one of the said shafts and the other to an end of the other of said shafts;

8. A machine as claimed in claim 2 wherein the machine includes a main operating shaft located in front of the retractable yarn-carriage for rotating the tuft-transferring and gripper unit, a pair of shafts extending parallel to said main operating shaft and journaled in the said unit, one for operating one of the yarn-grippers and the other for operating the other of said yarn-grippers and mechanism located at the side frames of the machine for operating said pair of shafts independently of one another.

9. A machine as claimed in claim 2, wherein the machine includes two shafts journalled in the tuft-transferring and gripper unit on substantially diametrically opposite sides of the axis of rotation of the said unit for operating the yarn-grippers and a spring-loaded and cam-operated lever is connected to one end of each of said shafts outwardly of the said unit.

CECIL CHARLES BRfNTON. 

